This may have
been what you'd hear when cautiously and curiously stepping inside your first smoke-filled,
dimly lit, nineteenth century bordello and seeing a Dove. After that first contact, caution was history,
which is why this site exists; the love of old west notorious history from gold
strike tent towns to established cities and the men and women that made
their presence known.

Soiled-doves of that period
were thriving far and wide, especially before the
inevitable arrival of the community's "virtuous" women.
Prostitutes were
among the first to populate and establish businesses in burgeoning towns of the
1800s and like all other early settlers, they were significant in developing
areas in which they lived and carried out their trade. For their
efforts, like other pioneers of that time, they risked disease, injury and in some cases
death.

Depending on the social and economic structure
of the area, bawdy houses (or houses of prostitution) ranged from makeshift tents to stately
mansions
fitted with crystal chandeliers, carpets, electricity and populated with women
of every age, color, size and price range. And let's not forget the mobile cat
wagons or portable brothels that traveled the countryside giving the
military at Fort Dodge in particular, trouble beyond measure. Others conducted business in
one-room dwellings called cribs or anywhere else the opportunity would come up.

Among
the more common names in reference to these ladies of the evening, depending on location, were
sportin' women,
soiled doves or prairie doves, frail sisters, public women, ladies of ill-fame, ladies
of easy virtue, nymphs du prairie, women of the rehab, women of evil name and
evil fame, demimonde, frail sisters, scarlet ladies, girls or women of the night,
fancy ladies, calico queens, horizontal experts, fallen women, purveyors of pleasure(or purveyors of sin
depending on your viewpoint), red light ladies, faeries of the half-world, brides of the
multitude just to name a few. And, if the establishment was lucky enough to have
a piano player, he was most often
referred to as the Professor. The Professor not only played ragtime
and blues
but would greet visitors at the door and often invite the city's most talented
musicians to get together and perform for customers at the bordello. Blues
notables at these performances in New Orleans' Storyville from time to time
during the late 1800s were Tony Jackson, Clarence
Williams, King Oliver, Manuel Perez and the infamous Jelly Roll Morton whose
tune, "Jelly Roll Blues," was written in 1924 and is what you hear playing
now depending on your browser.

Prices varied for the ladies depending on their location, age and ethnic
background. On San Francisco's Barbary Coast, fees ranged from 25¢ for a Mexican woman to $1 for an
American. The regular rate in the cribs occupied by black, Chinese or Japanese girls was 50¢, while the
French women sold their favors for
75¢. Even higher prices then any of these were sometimes obtained by
prostitutes of unusual youth and attractiveness
and particularly red-haired women. It was a popular myth in San
Francisco for many years that a woman with auburn
tresses was exceedingly amorous and that a red-haired Jewess was the most passionate
of all.

Mining towns, cow towns, logging camps and large cities were not
the only centers of prostitute activity. What can be said of cattle-shipping
centers can also be said of end-of-track towns across western United States
along with
army settlements like Hays and Leavenworth, Kansas or any frontier boom town.
Anywhere where the red
light district and saloons provided the only entertainment and recreation for
the men, most of whom were bachelors living lonely lives,
alone for weeks or months at a time, there were the ladies of easy virtue.

In this business, name changes were inevitable so
relatives would not be embarrassed. This lead to some of the most
entertaining names oozing out of the Old West such as Cuttin' Lil Slasher,
Hambone Jane, Tit Bit, The Great Easton, Sweet Annie, Black Pearl, Wicked Alice,
Smooth Bore, Molly b'Damn, Little Gold Dollar, Fatty McDuff, Lady Jane Gray,
Cotton Tail (said to be a natural blond), the
Roaring Gimlet, the Little Lost Chicken, Irish Molly, Big Nose Kate, Rose of the
Cimarron and in Alaska was the infamous Diamond Tooth Lil. As for
the ladies who traveled north to Alaska and the Yukon in the late 1890s for its
gold rush, Dolly Arthur in particular stands out with her own story in Ketchican,
Alaska. Read what noted author June Allen has to say about Dolly and the
ladies in that part of the country. (Click
here for those stories.)

No matter what
they were
called or how they were perceived, the doves were there for the taking and taking all they could get because as you might imagine, this was not a lifelong career and when
it was over, it was over. After time took its toll, what could they
do? Where did they go? What would the ladies do with the remainder
of their lives? Some started businesses or went on to careers beyond their
beginnings, others started families and shared nothing of their past lives while
others died by their own hand or were killed.

What would compel a woman to enter this line of
work in the 1800s? Why
women of any decade would turn to this lifestyle is always
interesting and of course every story is unique. Generally, the girls had
either been expelled from their homes or deserted by their parents or husbands and found
prostitution as the only way to support themselves. Others were forced into
prostitution to help their families survive and still others worked as domestics
or servants and were tricked into prostitution because they had been seduced by
their masters and abandoned, or simply mislead.

Research
during the 1800s found that the majority of prostitutes were young, usually
illiterate, poor and from broken families. These women had a limited
number of options available to them during the nineteenth century and because
of that, some turned to prostitution as a means of survival. Immigrant women
arriving without money or brought into the country forcibly, as with many Asian
women, had only prostitution as a way to make money. There were also the women
who turned to prostitution as an escape from typical professions. And for
others, they were as adventurous as the men heading west in the 1800s and this
way of life was seen as temporary until something better came along.

Women
did some recruiting too, often times they would get their daughters, sisters or
friends into the profession in an effort to help get them out of the same dire
circumstances from which they themselves had come. New girls would notice
the profession was not quite as demeaning as what they had perceived it to be
and they were earning large sums of money in some cases. And let's not
forget the excitement and a possible path to marriage.

According
to Elizabeth A. Topping, author of "What's a Poor Girl To Do?" the
term RED LIGHT DISTRICT originated in Kansas where alleys filled with cribs
crowded the areas closest to train stations making for quick and easy access by
railroad workers and passengers with time to kill. History says the
railroad brakemen would pay a young lad to watch for incoming and outgoing
trains while they were otherwise occupied. While this was going on, the
brakeman would leave his glowing red lantern outside the door indicating his
location so he could be
roused when it was time to go back to work. Some nights these slum
locations would glow red with brakemen's lanterns giving the area its notorious moniker.

This site is dedicated not only
to the ladies who first
settled these wild, lawless towns of crime, violence, gambling and marketable sex but to
the outlaws, bad men, bad women and bad decisions making up the fabric of America's old
west. Like it or not, prostitution was a very important industry for the
economics of any town. The fines alone were a necessity in some
communities as they helped build and maintain the community and although their profession was
frowned upon, they were still a very important part of all history, everywhere.

Craving more? How
about one of Jay Moynahan's books of this genre or Jan MacKell's books on the bad girls of
Colorado? Click on one of the links below for more information on
the doves; an excellent story on the ladies of the Old West by Herbert Asbury
author of Gangs of New York, western artwork for sale or roam through the
extensive bibliography. Toward the bottom of this page are links to
various Old West sites.

Venture into the Old West and the shady
ladies who made life bearable.Books by Jay Moynahan, retired past chair of
Eastern Washington
State Univ. Criminal Justice Dept

The Cripple Creek DOVE and other
stories by historian Jan Collins

Herbert Asbury's short story on the notorious Barbary
Coast

Wildlife
bronzes by
Bob Skriver ... for sale

Bibliography, more good stuff to read

Others having as much fun as us:(The shooter and victim below will take you to
other fun sites, click on one.)

How about some more gun
slingers, outlaws, good guys, bad guys
... and gals?

The
OVAL OUTLAW will take you to a site
LOADED with
American Old West facts from a former Texas newspaper reporter
and school teacher, now living in Canada ... by choice.(She
married a Canadian)

The dove checking her
reflection is doing business in Storyville, New Orleans,
the designated nineteenth century red light
district in that area.